Conference apportionment payments reach 90 percent

2/5/2012

By GLENN HANNIGAN

The bottom line on apportionments paid for 2011: the percentage is up but overall giving declined slightly.

Overall, 90.03 percent of apportionments were paid in 2011 in the North Georgia Conference, in comparison to 88.7 percent in 2010. But the total paid was $22,773,000 in 2011, compared to $22,997,000 in 2010.

That is the good news and not-so-good-news identified by Keith Cox, Treasurer of the North Georgia Conference.

“A very rough analysis indicates that churches that historically pay 100 percent continued to do so, on lower apportionments,” Cox said. “But the churches that don’t historically pay 100 percent continued that practice. The goal, of course, is to find ways to improve the percentages of churches that have not been giving 100 percent.”

In raw numbers, 679 churches paid 100 percent of apportionments in 2011 while 214 did not.

Among the districts, Atlanta Roswell churches paid 99.5 percent, the highest percentage for that district in at least 12 years. Other districts that achieved at least a 90-percent rate: Rome-Carrollton and Atlanta College Park (93.9); Athens-Elberton (91.8); Augusta and Atlanta Marietta (90).

“It is critical for us to increase the number of churches that pay all their apportionments since the Council on Finance and Administration is attempting to respond to the calls from our churches for budgetary relief,” Cox said. “Continuing to reduce the conference budget without an attendant increase in churches fully supporting the conference, can ultimately lead to some challenging financial conditions.”